Around 10,000 people, more than twice as many as last time, walked their own protest route across the city! In Rostock, for the first time, the registered Monday demonstration against the Corona restrictions and against compulsory vaccination could not take place as planned.
The police report says: “Before the start of the assembly, the assembly leader was supposed to keep an attendance list in connection with the Infection Protection Act, in which the data of the participants is recorded. The leader of the meeting was not in a position to do this.
After the previous Monday demonstrations in Rostock, which have so far always been trouble-free – mostly in compliance with the hygiene rules (distance, mask) – now suddenly all demonstrators were to have their names recorded in lists.
A case of harassment? Or legally justifiable?
The renowned, nationally known lawyer Joachim Steinhöfel (59) says in response to a BILD newspaper enquiry about the demo requirement: “What a fatal signal! Political persecution also began in the GDR with the systematic registration of ‘deviants’. The procedure is also clearly unconstitutional and violates several basic rights, in particular the right to freedom of demonstration!”On Monday evening, the people could not be dissuaded from their planned protest and first marched in front of the town hall. They demanded that Mayor Claus Ruhe Madsen (49, non-party) show himself – to no avail. Afterwards, the protest marched peacefully through the city centre to the city harbour.
Police spokeswoman Dörte Lembke: “At the peak, about 10,000 people joined the march, the vast majority from the middle-class spectrum.”
Who was responsible for the strict, almost impossible to fulfil requirements and the resulting spontaneous demonstration – this is now being disputed. City spokesman Ulrich Kunze told BILD on Tuesday: “The fact that the contact details were to be collected was only a recommendation, not an obligation. The head of the office assured me of that again after consultation.”
Assembly leader Jens Kaufmann (55, entrepreneur) contradicts this account: “This ‘should’ is more about ‘must’ than ‘can’. I should record the names, addresses, telephone numbers of all participants.” According to Kaufmann, he would have made himself liable to prosecution if he had ignored this requirement, which should be seen as a political decision.
In addition, Kaufmann said, he had asked the police commander to clarify or have the legal interpretation of this required list of participants clarified with the regulatory authority or Lord Mayor Madsen on site. This had not happened even after an hour. Therefore, he could not be responsible for the demo on this scale.
By the way: When the soccer club FC Hansa advanced into the 2nd league in May, 10,000 people were allowed to celebrate spontaneously – also under Corona conditions – in a humid and uncontrolled way, without distances and masks, on the market square – and the Lord Mayor was present in person. In retrospect, this did not prove to be a Corona infection hotspot.
